- 1808.] 
companied bya Preface, illustrative of 
some peculiarities of French manners, 
particularly in the literary and fashion- 
able circles, which may reuder-the work 
more easily understood; and by notes, 
which contain notices of characters and 
events alluded to in the course of the ori- 
ginal work, and not generally known in 
this country. 2 
At the last meeting of the Wernerian 
Society, the president, Professor Jamie- 
son, read an account of a method of 
constructing and colouring mineralogical 
maps, a satisfactory description of which 
method cannot be given without draw- 
inys. Maps, executed according to ‘this 
plan, distinctly exhibit the figure of the 
cliffs, terraces, ranges, and groups of 
mountains ; and the colouring affords a 
true and harmonious representation of 
the alternation, extent, and relative posi- 
tion of the different rocks that appear on 
the surface. At the same time, the pro- 
fessor laid before the society a series of 
mineralogical queries,which he had drawn 
up with a view to direct the attention of 
mineralogists to the particular objects 
pointed out to them. 
Mr. James Puentx, of Liverpool, has 
invented a fire-alarm. By means, of 
the expansion of heated air, water is 
forced out of a glass vessel upon a piece 
of loaf sugar, about half an inch square, 
the melting ef which allows a spring to 
escape. This spring communicates with 
an alarm, or rings the bell in the lobby ; 
but one of these alarms would be requi- 
site for every room in a house. { 
Mr. J. I. Hawkins, of Titchfield- 
street, has established a museum for the 
reception and exhibition of useful me- 
chanical inventions and improvements, 
Although his own inventions constitute 
the leading feature of the exhibition, yet 
it 1s not exclusively confined to these, for 
the inventions and improvements of 
others. are and wil] be introduced. In 
the list which he gives of those that are 
now exhibiting, or in preparation, may be 
noticed the following curious contri- 
vances: a cock, by which a servant can 
draw no more liguor than is ordered. 
—a machine, to be towed across a river, 
which will at the same moment draw on 
paper, to any reduced scale, the exact 
shape of the bottom; shewing, at one 
view, the depth of water in every part, 
together with the width of the river—a 
violin to fold up for the pocket—artifi- 
cial ears to assist the deaf, which can be 
worn out of sight without inconvenience. 
Literary and Philosophical Intelligence. 
355 
Mr. Tuomas Warren, jun, school- 
master of Bury, has exhibited an engraved 
slate of his invention, by which any per- 
son may learn to write without the use 
of pen, ink, paper, or a master.—This 
invention, .it 1s thought, far exceeds any 
thing that has yet been laid before the 
public for teaching the children of the 
poor the art of writing. — ’ 
GERMANY. 
Professor StromeyeER, of Gottingen, 
has published in thirty-two whole sheet 
tables, a systematic arrangement of the 
different substances which are the par- 
ticular objects of chemical science, witha 
pretty copious collection of synonyms in 
German, Latin, French, and English. 
The only innovation he has allowed him- 
self, is the classing of oil, sugar, starch, 
gluten, and several other vegetable and 
animal matters, as oxides with compound 
radicals, consisting either of carbon and 
hidrogen, or carbon, hidrogen, and nitro- 
gen. Among these he makes wax differ 
from fixed oil only, in being more oxided, 
and adipocere from fat in the same mane 
ner. } 
The same gentleman has likewise com- 
municated part of the results of his che- 
mical investigation of the union of hie 
drogen with metals. On the present 
occasion he confines himself to that of 
arsenic. This, he observes, succeeds 
‘best by digesting an alloy of fifteen parts 
of tin, and one of arsenic, with concene 
‘trated muriatic acid, in a retort con- 
nected with the pneumatic apparatus. 
He was led to this by the observation of 
Proust, that muriatie acid completely 
frees tin from arsenic: and on rhilllicon, 
sion he convinced himselt by experiments, 
that the fetid hidrogen gas evolved, when 
the tin of the shops is dissolved in muri- 
atic acid, is not a compound of tin and 
hidrogen, as Fourcroy conjectures in his ~ 
Chemical System, but of arsenic and 
hidrogen. When arsenicated hidrogen 
gas is formed in the manner directed 
above, a very pure oximuriate of tin is. 
obtained. Professor Stromeyer cone 
cludes with a remarkable experiment, 
showing the effect of oil of turpentine on 
arsenicated hidrogen gas, all the phene- 
mena of which, however, do not appear 
easily explicable. ‘Ten cubic inches of 
gas being confined over this essential oil, 
all the arseific was separated in the 
course of ten hours, so as to leave the 
hidrogen gas pure. No perceptible 
deposition of metal or oxide took place; 
but the oil appeared viscous and inilky , 
and 
